Improve Your Marketing ROI With These Books

Do you feel the sneaking suspicion that your marketing just isn’t producing the returns it should? Listen to your instincts because your hunch might be right on the money.

Take your email marketing. Maybe it’s not getting anywhere near the 36x payback that Litmus research says it should. Or your SEO. Serpwatch says you can expect a 14.6% prospect-to-lead conversion rate.

If those types of numbers make you feel like you must be doing something wrong, take a step back. Breathe deeply—there’s hope on the horizon. Even if your ROI isn’t impressive today, you can make some tweaks to give it a nudge. For example, you could develop a few key performance indicators (KPIs) and start measuring them. After all, marketers who track KPIs are inclined to stay in tune with the success of their campaigns. They’re also more eager to experiment with ways to change those KPIs for the better.

How can you experience if your creative well’s gone dry? Fill it with a bit of old-fashioned upskilling. Many marketing and sales experts have written books that can give you insider tips to improve your decision-making confidence. Below are six recent suggestions to get you started on the path to helping you bump up your department’s ROI and maybe even impress your boss.

1. 500 Social Media Marketing Tips

Even the smallest businesses and startups in the world rely on social media to flesh out their marketing and fill sales funnels. However, it can be tough to understand how to master social media sites, particularly newer ones like TikTok.

The bestselling 500 Social Media Marketing Tips, written by Andrew Macarthy, aims to provide you with hints you need to grab and keep attention. The book’s a fairly breezy read, making it an effective resource to keep by your side. You’ll get the inside scoop on everything from making existing content work across distinct social platforms to concentrating on diving deep into one particular site.

If you aren’t impressed with your social marketing ROI, now is the time to reach for this down-to-earth guide. Social selling is only going to become more relevant to your sales team. The faster you can help bring in more qualified leads, the higher your credibility will rise as an all-star marketing team.

2. The Hawke Method

Consumers have spoken and they want wow-factor level personalization from brands. This means you have to be ready to hold their hands from the moment they let you know they’re potentially interested. Or, as Erik Huberman, the author, would suggest in his book discussing today’s most relevant principles of marketing, you need to make nurturing, awareness, and trust your top three priorities. I’ve personally seen these strategies used with clients as I’ve worked with Hawke in the past and this method is something to check out.

In The Hawke Method, Huberman lays out a roadmap to help you make prospects and leads feel valued. Follow the routes he’s taken for his own and other companies and you could see an increase in maximum lifetime returns. You could also affect related KPIs like lowering the cost it takes to acquire each lead you attract.

Treating people exceptionally well from the get-go could fire up your marketing ROI engine. So give this book a read and apply some innovative techniques to build trust with buyers.

3. The Roaring Twenties

The author, Shawna Suckow, isn’t the first person to make the analogy between the marketing needs of yesteryear and those of today. Why? Marketers were scrambling to adjust to a shifting population in the 1920s, too. Suckow talks about this phenomenon in The Roaring Twentiesa fascinating walk down a time when consumer behavior changed suddenly and companies had to keep up.

As much a historical “look back” as a “how-to,” The Roaring Twenties will help you revitalize tired marketing schemes that no longer lift eyebrows. Remember: Both the 1920s and 2020s were times of post-pandemic upheaval and resurgence. Knowing a little more about the past can only make you stronger as you carve out a place in what could be a ready-to-boom present.

If you’ve been searching for a good book to share with some of your top marketing colleagues, this might be a good one to pass on. Just know ahead of time that your coworkers may pick up on some of the fun, outdated phrases Suckow peppers throughout her prose.

4. Killing Marketing

If increasing business traction and creating increased revenue for your business is something you have considered, this is the book to read. Killing Marketing, written by Joe Pulizzi, discusses how you can give your marketing strategy a 180-degree transformation. He explains the importance of acknowledging the variables that are affecting your current model, in addition to the ways a transformation can guarantee a successful ROI.

Pulizzi also discusses that – through a transformation – your business has the potential to increase customer loyalty as well as your business revenue. It’s no shock that companies such as Disney, Johnson & Johnson, and others, have risen to the top using content marketing strategies discussed in Killing Marketing.

5. Performance Partnerships

Like any business concept, to fully understand what affiliate marketing is and how it works, you must first know the history behind it. The author, Robert Glazer, explains exactly that in Performance Partnerships, as well as detailing his experience with affiliate marketing. He also discusses how significant of an effect affiliate marketing truly has on business success.

Despite all of the many misconceptions with affiliate marketing, one thing is certain: the marketing resulting only in concrete and measurable outcomes is all you pay for. Overall, Performance Partnerships offers insight on the endless potential affiliate marketing can offer your business.

6. Creating Superfans

Gaining a following with an audience is only half the battle. But, creating “superfans” – as the author, Brittany Hodak words it – is the real challenge. As a helpful resource for not only creating “superfans,” but also retaining them, Hodak has successfully built her credibility by being a global keynote speaker, in addition to being an outstanding business leader.

She currently offers several convenient and accessible resources, including digital books and guides. Of all the helpful resources she has made readily available, she is also working on an upcoming hardcover book, Creating Superfans. Officially releasing in 2023, this book will describe the process – from start to finish – of how you can inspire your customers to be ecstatic brand supporters. Needless to say, you’ll definitely want to have this on your book list.

It’s not a pipe dream to ima​​gine that it’s possible to outshine last year’s marketing ROI figures by a significant margin. All it takes is a little planning and an infusion of new ideas. Even if you only get one piece of usable advice from each marketing book you read, your time will have been well invested.